Modern Philosophy: Kant to the Present [History of Philosophy Part 2] (MP3 download)

1. The Historical Background. A summary of those issues essential for an understanding of recent philosophic trends.2-3. Aristotelian Logic Is Banished From Philosophy. The father of contemporary Philosophy: Immanuel Kant. The Kantian revolution in philosophy, the analytic-synthetic dichotomy, Kant's famous argument: the "deduction of the categories", reality as unknowable "things-in-themselves", the phenomenal and noumenal worlds. Kant's ethics: the morality of duty, the attack on happiness, the Categorical Imperative.4. A New "Logic" Leads to an Old Politics . . . Hegel. Reality as a dialectic process, the Absolute, the coherence theory of truth, Hegel's concept of freedom, the absolutist state.5. . . . and to an Epidemic of Irrationalism. 19th-century German romanticism. Schopenhauer: the metaphysics of the Will, the irrationality of the universe. Nietzsche: the philosophy of Power, "Beyond Good and Evil." Marx: Communism, dialectical materialism, the economic interpretation of history, advocacy of world revolution.6. The Virus Reaches the Defenders of Science. Comte: the philosophy of Positivism, the origin of "altruism." Mill: Utilitarianism, a collectivist defense of capitalism. Spencer: reality as unknowable, Social Darwinism.7-8. Truth, Logic and Values Are Divorced From Reality. Pragmatism. The Pragmatic theory of meaning: C.S. Peirce, the Pragmatic theory of truth: William James, Pragmatism fully developed: Dewey's instrumentalism. Logical Positivism. The linguistic theory of logic, the verifiability theory, knowledge as probability, rejection of metaphysics.9. Language Is Formally Divorced From Reality. The Analysts. Philosophy as the analysis of propositions: G.E. Moore, Bertrand Russell, Ordinary Language Analysis: the later Wittgenstein, the emotive theory of ethics.10. Nausea Becomes a Metaphysical Emotion. Existentialism: Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre. The rejection of reason, the absurdity of the universe, Death and Nothingness, fear, trembling and dread. Zen Buddhism.11-12. Man Finds His Defender: Objectivism. The primacy of existence vs. the primacy of consciousness, the subjective, the intrinsic and the objective, the Objectivist theory of concept-formation, the derivation of the Objectivist ethics and politics from its metaphysics and epistemology.This is Part 2 of the two-part course.